Work Out Your Salvation

The Holy One calls to me this morning.  A change of scenery and location for a few days is refreshing.  It is a great relief for me to realize this morning that the Holy One still calls to me and I can still hear Him, no matter where I lay my head.

Today, he calls to me to talk a little more about one of the biggest problems we face from within and from without in our faith walk.  His reminder is crisp and clean.  "You are to work OUT your salvation not work FOR your salvation." This comes on the heels of a rebuke for a "judgmental attitude" that was getting mixed up in my processing of circumstances and relational issues. 

Given the fact that we have an enemy who is relentless in bringing charges against us.  Given our flesh bodies that are so often "guilty as charged".  And given the struggle to do what is right in a world that is so wrong, His point is well taken.

Phil 2:12, "Continue to work our your salvation with fear and trembling for it is God who works in you to will and act according to His good purpose.  Do everything without complaining or arguing so that you may be blameless and pure, children of God, without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the Word of Life.

I agree with the Word of God and where I find myself in a "crooked and depraved generation".  The Holy One is trying to help me see the difference between "working out" my salvation and "working for" it.  If I am saved through the Cross of Jesus and what He did, then why do I have this "life and death" perspective over what I see happening as the Holy Spirit is working out what has taken place within my heart?

Being made Holy, transformed by a decision I made at one point in my life, is a long process.  It involves effort on my part, as the Holy One within makes Himself at home in my heart.

On the day of my salvation I entered into a covenant with The Father, The Son and The Holy Spirit.  The covenant is a two way contract.  I gave Him my life and He gave me His.  The Seal of the covenant is the indwelling Holy Spirit. His Presence within establishes His acceptance of my surrender.  The Lord took me at my word and He takes our covenant seriously.

It seems that many of us fail to grasp the covenant terms and conditions of our salvation, by and through the death our Savior died on the Cross.  We fail to comprehend that we "agreed"to surrender to the life of Christ within and we get really vexed when He begins the process of bringing us into the conforming image of our Lord. 

Our lack of understanding doesn't terminated the contract but it does cause us more unnecessary grief as we try to sort things out.  We look at our problems externally rather than assess what the Holy One is after internally.  Our lack of understanding, may even create a bend-the-rules (that we are obligated to live by) scenario and when we  suffer the consequences promised, we question in ways we wouldn't if we had read the fine print of our contract.

Personally I understand better, the scriptures He has placed before me, because the Holy One pointed out how my "arguing and complaining" has been more with Him and His ways than with people in my life.

The "process" after salvation can get confusing unless we understand that important distinction between working for something that hasn't yet happened and working out the evidence of what has already taken place.

To continue to hit the altar calls, after our salvation, thinking we are not saved is a serious problem with our faith and understanding of our covenant.  "For it is God who works in you to will and act according to His good purpose."

There is not one magical day on earth's calendar when our humanity will not be tempted or challenged against the Holy One within. But to doubt His Presence because we are tempted or even fail to follow His lead, is exactly what our enemy is after in our life.

To doubt your salvation is to be neutralized in the Lord's refining process.  To misunderstand the process will radically alter your life and usefulness.

To work our your salvation is to surrender and do the bidding of the Holy Spirit within, who works in us to will and act according to God's good purpose for our lives in Christ.  Rather than be defeated when issues arise that cause us to question our sanity and salvation, may we take it back to the Holy One for the wisdom, find out what He is after, and make the course corrections that will bring Him Glory.

It might be  a good thing to revisit our day of salvation and be reminded of our first Love.  Especially if we need to confess our misunderstanding of what it meant to Him.

The Spirit is calling.  Can you hear Him?

Perfect Love**

The Holy One calls to me this morning.  As I surrender my thoughts to His counsel and scrutiny, I am always braced for what His light reveals about the way my human mind processes things.

I have come to realize over the years of my progressive surrender to His ruling authority, that my mind can get overwhelmed by "stinkin thinkin" in a short period of time.  Taking every thought into the captivity and obedience to Christ is to discipline  my mind and like training an unruly child, some days are harder than others to bring my thoughts back to Holiness.

The Holy One speaks, "You would rather judge than repent."  Oh no, it's going to be "one of those days".  Another tough day in the sanctification process. 

When will I ever get free from all the fleshly thoughts and contradictions to righteousness?  The Holy One answers my thought, "Not until you exit this realm and join with Trinity in the next". 

That is very comforting and gives me the encouragement to press in and grasp what He is about to tell me.  What do You mean when you say I would rather judge than repent?

Much is happening fast in our world and in the Body of Christ.  Injustice in the world, an apathy about Holiness and the lines between right and wrong, good and evil seem to be muddied for most who are unwilling to make a stand.  But then there are those who are willing to form a judgment but base it on the wrong standard.

As I roll these thoughts around and accept that, what He has observed is true, I know I need to lower my resistance and defenses and hear Him out.  "Sometimes you judge out of fear.  Fear that you are not perfect and therefore, not acceptable to Me.  Rather than repent, you form a judgment over someone else who may "appear" to be less right, less holy, less religious, less------perfect.

In 2 Corinth 10:12, Paul spoke of it this way, "When they measure themselves by themselves, and compare themselves with themselves, they are not wise."  The Holy One, in answering my prayers for wisdom, has just let me know of something within that is "unwise".

Then He takes me to Romans 14:1,  "Accept him whose faith is weak without passing judgement on disputable matters.  And 14:4 says, "Who are you to judge someone else's servant.  To his own Master he stands or falls and he will stand for the Lord is able to make him stand."  And then again in Romans 14:13, "Therefore, let us stop passing judgement on one another, instead make up your mind not to put  a stumbling block or obstacle in your brother's way."

I guess it goes back to the sliver and the beam in the eye.  Today will be a day to re-think my categorical "judgments".  One thing I know I can trust:  The Holy One will surely point them out as He is convicting and correcting me.

I see that my "fears" cause me to judge.  My fears that those I love are not where I think they should be in their faith reflects judgment, as if they are unacceptable.  My fears that drive me to self- condemnation and self-pity reflects judgment, as if I am unacceptable.  My fears of what is happening circumstantially all around me reflects judgement, as if the Sovereignty of God's permissive will is unacceptable.

Rather than go with the "fears"  into judgment, the Holy One made it clear that I must repent, and get rid of the fear that leads me into other sin.  Then it dawns on me.   Through fear and judgment, I put "conditions" on love, accepting and giving love "conditionally".

To find righteous judgment, I must go back to the standard, not myself, but my Christ, not my opinions, but the Word of God.  And there, I must draw upon the grace and love of the Holy One within. Jesus said that He did not come to judge the world but to save it.

"Let no debt remain outstanding but the continuing debt to love one another." Roman 13:8.. There is no fear in love,  I John 4:18, "But perfect love drives out fear."

At the bottom line, what the Holy One is really showing me is much deeper than fear or judgments. What He is after really boils down to unconditional love.  I know that I cannot generate it in and of myself, that is His job and role.  But what I must do is remove the obstacles and the "stinkin thinkin" that stand in His way.

The Spirit is calling.  Can you hear Him?
  

A Time to Rebuild***

The Holy One calls to me this morning.  It's a new day and I praise Him that His mercies are new every morning.  I grab my Bible and journal and head into our early morning counsel session.

The Holy One always seems to start me off with a sentence or two that provokes deep thought and sometimes His statements make me wonder if I am hearing Him correctly.

Today He said, "Nothing on earth is so sacred that it cannot be rebuilt if it has been destroyed."

Written in the Chronicles of the history of the Jews in exile, there came a day on the calendar when it was recorded that, "The Lord moved the heart of Cyrus, King of Persia" who declared, "The Lord God of Heaven has given me all the kingdoms of the earth and He has appointed me to build a Temple for Him at Jerusalem in Judah". 2 Chron. 36:23.

That proclamation set the stage for the rebuilding of the beloved Temple in the Holy City of  the Jewish people, Jerusalem in Ezra Chapter 3.

I am beginning to understand the statement Holiness has just made to my heart and mind.  The remnant of the Jewish people were sent into exile.  They were sent into a land not their own, under the authority of a foreign king, surrounded by a world of people they neither knew nor trusted.  They were captives but their lives had been spared.

Life continued for them, but always with the heartache that they had lost the most important symbol of their faith and life, The Temple.  It had been destroyed in the invasion and was left in ruins as they were carried off into captivity.  All of it's grandeur, all the treasure it housed, all the elements that gave meaning to their faith with the reminders that they were a chosen people and their God was the One True God, was plundered and destroyed.

The Counselor knows my thoughts.  Over the years,  seasons have brought destruction to things that seemed to me to be indestructible.  Our country as "one nation under God".  A marriage and family within our "family nation" divorced and dismantled.  A business that had supported us for all these years no longer viable as it once stood.  Even visions of sure ministry have been dashed and taken out of the hands of those I love.

The things I see lost and stolen are not the bad things.  On the contrary, to me, they were the sacred, the good, the right, the Holy and what even might be termed the  necessary for our life in exile.  The Holy One has taken me to the book of Ezra to give me a hope and a future.

When we understand just how important the Temple was to the Jews, I doubt there is anything in our lives to compare.  It not only symbolized their individual lifestyle but it defined their nation, corporately.  Without the Temple, where the sacrifices were made daily for the sins of the individuals and the nation, they had no ability to have relationship with their God because their faith rested on obedience to God's commands, and the Temple represented His presence within.

Since Jesus came, died, and is now our Resurrected Living God, by the indwelling Holy Spirit, we are the temple.  Our bodies are the temple of God's Holy Presence within.

The statement He spoke to me and the subject of the book of Ezra deposited a hope in my heart.  All is not lost even as we witness the destruction of sacred things.  Our God is the Creative Force that spoke all things into existence.  His promise to me is that He will provide what is needed and will oversee the rebuilding of what has been lost or destroyed and the replacement of what has been stolen.

With the Temple of old as a symbol, the Lord reminds each one of us that He does not reside in a temple built by human hands and He is not limited by any destruction brought upon us by evil, whether through dark forces or humans under their control.  The world is the Lord's and everything in it.

God Himself,  set up the plan for the rebuilding of the temple and He has the plan for the rebuilding of our lives as well.  Even as we agonize over what was lost; what it was to us and what it might have been had it not been destroyed, let us look to our Eternal Savior, Christ Jesus, and what He will provide in it's place.

The Spirit is calling.  Can you hear Him?

God's Purpose Stands***

The Holy Spirit calls to me this morning.  Thunder is booming outside.  Sometimes His voice sounds like the thunder in my ears; Loud, clear, earth shaking.

When God was questioning Job in Chapters 38-42 of the Book in Scripture that bears his name, Job recounts, "Then the Lord answered Job out of the storm.  He said, "Who is this that darkens My counsel with words without knowledge?  Brace yourself like a man, I will question you and you shall answer Me."

Wow, it sounds like someone is in deep trouble!

In Job 40:1, "The Lord said to Job, "Will the one who contends with the Almighty correct Him?  Let Him who accuses God answer Him."  And then in Job 40:6, again it says, "Then, the Lord spoke to Job out of the storm.  Brace yourself like a man, I will question you and you will answer Me.  Would you discredit my justice?  Would you condemn me to justify yourself?"

The heat of Job's trials brought up some "dross" out of his heart and mind.  This is a picture of the refining process we are all in.  Gold in it's natural state is not pure.  It contains impurities that have to be separated out in order to be considered pure gold.

The process of separating out the impurities is called refining the gold and it involves heat.  The gold is placed in a crucible over a heat source.  As the temperature under the gold is intensified, gold turns to liquid and the impurities are released and rise to the surface where they are visible. The Refiner applying the heat ladles off the impurities or "dross" so that when the gold returns to its solid state, it is pure.  With no impurities, nothing but pure gold remains.

Today the Holy One speaks out of the storm, "My purpose in the trial stands and it is good."

Just as evil releases his fury and rages at the standard of Holiness that God's people are trying so hard to live by, the Lord thunders His response to the evil one,

"My purpose stands and it is good!"

I look back over my life and realize the truth.  God is the Sovereign Refiner of His Creation.  Whatsoever He has allowed to touch my life has brought me to where I am today. All the myriad of trials and the heat they provided, revealed forms of corruption within my heart and mind.  Lies believed about God's Character, bad form acted out of self-possession or flat out ignorance of what I am capable of in terms of my "innocent" wickedness, all get dealt with in the trials I experience.

To even think that trials are random, without Godly purpose, represent hard treatment at the hands of a cruel Sovereign, or just bum luck karma, denigrate the pure Divine Character of my Holy God.

The liar is always at his destructive game;  To separate me from Truth and if he cannot change my eternity at least he can make my earthly life so miserable and neutralize my ability or desire to share the knowledge of my Savior with a lost and dying world.

The Lord spoke to Job out of the storm.  The Lord speaks to all of us out of the storm.  His voice thunders, His Word proclaims:

MY PURPOSE STANDS AND IT IS GOOD!

As I declare my trust in the power of My God and the Name of my Savior, Jesus Christ, evil must bow and retreat. But if I wallow in the pit of self-pity and agree with the enemy that I am a victim and not a victor, the trial will bear a different fruit".

Then the Holy One speaks in the voice of my Shepherd, "Beloved, trust Me. The higher ground I am leading you to is lush and you will find your test will become a testimony.  My power, My authority, My love, My rescue, My goodness, My mercy  are transforming your life".

I hear and now trust the hand of the Refiner of my soul, knowing His purpose stands and it is good!

The Spirit is calling.  Can you hear Him?

   

Permission to Enter

The Holy Spirit calls to me this morning.  Life with the Holy One truly is a thrill a minute.  I can't tell if it's me asking non stop-questions of my Lord or Him wanting me to learn more with the short time I believe we have left on earth., but the "why's" are swallowed up by the "whats" and I can't scribe fast enough.  Before I can fully process one vital lesson another one comes on it's heels.  This is one of those days.

The subject of "deliverance" has been all around me lately.  There are many who make the fatal mistake of believing that the Devil does not exist.  Jesus spoke of the reality of the prince of darkness and Ephesians speaks of the battle and identifies the enemy, so to deny his existence and viability is rejecting the Truth of the Word of God.

We are told about "strongholds", which is a power grip that the devil has on one's mind.  When the power grip is so strong, demons manifest through the person and we call them "possessed".  The process of freeing the mind is then called "deliverance".  When the evil demon power over the mind is evicted, the person is considered "delivered" from bondage to that entity and regains control of their thoughts and behavior.

The whole subject sounds "ooga-booga" and  many will not even attempt to grasp the principles behind the mystery. The Holy One calls me today after a week of hearing different personal testimonies of people being set free by the power of Jesus.  It's not everyday that these testimonies surface, but the few coming in a short space of time has me thinking deep.

As I ponder the subject of enemy intrusion into the mind, the Holy Spirit speaks, "Satan cannot operate without permission".

God's Word in Isaiah 54 says, "For I, the Lord have created the destroyer to work havoc."  That sounds like it could be bad, until you read the next part.  "No weapon formed against you will prevail".  In essence, what I read is that  God created the destroyer to work havoc and therefore God is in control of the degree of havoc that the destroyer is allowed to work, and, also,  that God is in control of the purpose behind the havoc.  God did not create the destroyer to destroy us.  That is why the next part is so important.  No weapon formed against us (who believe) will prevail.

Then the scripture says, "You will refute every tongue that accuses you. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord and this is their vindication  from Me".   Satan is the accuser of the brethren of believers.  This part of the verse reveals that the real battle is in the mind where all accusations come to rest and actions are formed in response.

Wrong thinking in our lives represents sin and that opens up the doorway for the darkness to enter.  As we have the Word of God to encourage us, direct us, teach us, command us, warn us, we are not without the tools to recognize behavior that is antagonistic to God's Will, in other words, sin.  Add to that our Indwelling Counselor, whose role it is to bring in God's wisdom and life and to bring out of us the Glory due Christ Jesus,  we have all we need to live free from tormenting spirits sent by Satan AKA the Devil.

Reading the account of Job's life, we get the picture that Satan had to have God's "permission" to attack Job's life. Satan's intended goal was to humiliate God through Job.  His effort was aimed at the end game...to manipulate the relationship between the God and His Beloved "servant".  He was intent on discrediting God's creation and thereby insult the Creator. The enemy set out to break down God's beloved and attempt to get him to curse God.

How does this evil one work?  His strategy is ancient and never changes.  He is a liar.  He will speak lies and half truth  to our minds and then create circumstances that tend to support the lie he wants us to believe.

In John 8:44, Jesus speaking to a group of rejecting religious people of His day said, "you belong to your father the devil.......he was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth for there is no truth in him. For when he lies, he speaks his native tongue for he is a liar and the father of lies."

Our ancient enemy speaks lies to our minds.  As we come to believe his lies against the Truth and the Word of the Living God of all Creation, we give him a doorway of access into our minds.  Once he moves in without being evicted, we can be overcome by evil thoughts which then become ungodly behavior.  The enemy gains permission to enter when we continue to violate or disobey God's commands which were set up for our good.

For the really "possessed", those having believed the lies for so long, his access often comes through substance abuse which neutralizes a person's will to evict the liar and creates a temporary place of comfort or peace. But for those he just "torments",  access is gained through attitude sin like anger, unforgiveness, bitterness, fear, anger, hatred, resentment, guilt, all of which we are commanded to get rid of or "put off".

Back to Job's life, and while none can judge I notice a few places where he believed a lie and co-operated with Satan's attack.

Job' statement in Job 1:21, "The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away".  In reality it was not the Lord who caused the loss, It was Satan.  The assassination of God's character was allowed to stand in Job's mind.



In the end, after all that the enemy brought against Job's life while under God's Sovereign control, Job entered into a deep relationship with the Creator God.

God spoke to him and set him straight.  Job answered indicating, he got the point.  In Job 42:4  he says about his experience with God, "You said, Listen now and I will speak:  I will question you and you shall answer me."  My ears had heard of  you, but now my eyes have seen you, therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.

What was Job repenting for?  I see it as his "wrong perspective", which is a polite way of saying Job had believed lies about the true character of God.

Satan was given permission to enter Job's circumstances.  God allowed the test.  Satan was also given permission to enter as Job himself believed lies and half truths about God's Character and relationship with His beloved.

The account of Job's life and trials, the understanding of God's permission and Satan's limitations is really a hard concept to accept until we get to the end of the story.  There we find Job fully restored and even multiplied in blessings.  He, like Lazarus, was a resurrected man, with a bigger and better understanding of the mighty, powerful, majestic God we serve.

Permission to enter was granted Satan , but only so that God's Sovereign purpose in it be fulfilled.  God's Will is intimacy with His beloved and at the end of Job's story, that was accomplished unto God's great Glory.  Intimacy begins when we seek God for who He is, and His Word is all about who He is.  To get to know our God we must  get to know His Word. 

The Spirit is calling.  Can you hear Him?

The Greatest Blessing

The Holy One calls to me in the depths of my unconscious sleep.  "My eye is always on the sparrow, but today I am honing a man".  I hear His voice but what is He saying?

His statement came to answer some of the deepest unspoken questions in my heart and mind.  The Spirit knows my every thought. He knows my entire being, every cell, every hair on my head, every emotion from rage to love.

Who but the Creator of my being can bring an answer before I ask for it, almost before it is formed in my mind?  Because the Holy One knows my heart like no other person will ever know my heart.

The subject of His familiarity with me is so insane.  If He knows my thoughts before them are given over to my words or my actions, then He also knows all my doubts, my fears, even my struggles with unbelief.

I recoil at the "thought" of all He knows, but then He puts me at ease.  " I created you.  I know you.  I love you."  But how can you love all the yuck? I protest.

"The diamond that you are in the rough, only needs My refinement to make you brilliant.  I know you and what lies beneath the surface.  Trust Me to love who I created you to be!"

Worship started to fill my heart for the greatest blessing my humanity can receive, the Indwelling Presence of the Holy One Himself.

How can I ever begin to thank the Father who sent the Son.  How can I ever begin to thank the Son who sent the Holy Spirit? How can I ever begin to thank the Holy Spirit who opened my entire being to the knowledge of the Triune Creator of all, and for the eternal love He has for the one-of-a-kind, unique person of me?

I John 3:1 "How great is the love the Father has lavished upon us that we should be called children of God, and that is what we are.  The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know Him.  Dear Friends, we are children of God and what we will be has not yet been made known.  But we know that when He appears we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is"

The depth of this Truth is stunning to my mind.  God's DNA lies within me from Creation and conception.  That is the "good" as in God created me and said it is "good".  Like a diamond in the rough, I am being refined and polished by the Holy Spirit who, knowing my true value,  will not give up or relent on His work until I shine from every angle with the brilliance He knows lies within me.

I may grow weary in the process, but the Holy One doesn't.  He is not concerned by my squeals nor put off by my dirt.  While His eye is on all He created around me and the weakest things have His attention, He is honing the "man" He created to bear His image, and will not stop until He is done.

The Spirit is calling.  Can you hear Him?

Wired for Innocence***

The Holy One calls to me this morning. The time change has challenged my biological alarm clock and waking up is so hard in the revised early morning "watches of the night".  The Counselor bids me "good morning", as I try to pull myself out of the fog of having slept too hard and too long.

I have been in the course of  a study, called "trusting God's ways".  Over the years the Holy Spirit has had me in a place of learning the things of faith like taking courses, compressed into periods or seasons not unlike semesters of college.  They all come with a teaching and a series  of tests.

My human mind might fight the thought that the God of all Creation has me under His Divinely appointed Holy Tutor or that the God of all eternity since the beginning of time  has orchestrated each event in each day I face, for the sole purpose of my personal intimate training and advance in learning about His ways. That is a brain buster to me, but  my Counselor presses on.

Jesus, when He left earth said that He would send the Holy Spirit, Counselor and that I would "know Him for He lives with you and will be in you" John 14:17.

I have learned to recognize that internal voice as quiet as He speaks.  While I can now hear and know the Spirit's voice, I am still required to "surrender" in obedience to Him against the loud and desperate demands of my flesh, that always seem to run counter to His commands.

For years I failed to comprehend the Holy Spirit's role and companionship and therefore followed an agenda dictate by my flesh to my great sorrow and heartache. I am different today, thanks be to the Lord, who never gives up on us even when I, like Peter, offered Him my brand of betrayal.

The Holy One waited quietly until the heat of my rebellion got so intense that I cried out for rescue and relief.  He came, He quenched the fire, He set about to claim His Throne in my heart. 

Today the Holy One is my Beloved Companion and He continues to lead me into all Truth.

As I ponder God's ways, the mystery of His Sovereignty brings so many questions.  I wonder the "whys" not so much in unbelief like I did at first, but more to delight in understanding His ways.

One of the first things I learned in this school was that our amazing God does not operate on a formula that we can learn and therefore anticipate His next move.  Moment to moment trust in Him is the only absolute to the greater grasp and understanding of His mysterious ways.  In fact He is enshrouded with mystery and it is the mystery that intensifies my fascination in our Sacred romance.  There is so much to learn about my Beloved Savior and God, eternity is the time I need to process all that He is.

The subject of decision making and discernment, is the hot topic of this morning's meeting.  While Truth comes with the Indwelling Holy Spirit because He IS Truth, the enemy is always at work barraging my mind with lies and half truth and therefore discernment becomes a critical component in every decision I need to make.  I ask the Holy One for His discernment. 

I rejoice in the fact that I can ask and trust in the fact that He answers.  Situations I face today come with a lot of nuances.  The lines between right and wrong can get muddied by political correctness, and evil clamoring for speedy decisions, tempting me to knee jerk reactions.

Then there are those issues offensive to decency, being swept under the carpet for so long, apathy sets in, and a new status quo gets established just a little further away from Holiness so that we don't feel the shift.

The Holy One takes me back to the Garden for the lesson today.  He reminds me that in the Garden were all kinds of trees bearing wonderful fruit.  Yet there was in the Garden of Creation, the one tree forbidden.  This is common knowledge for it is written in the Genesis account of our origins.

As Holiness walks me back to the Garden, He begins to fill in some of the banks for me.
"As you were created to be a companion of the Creator, you were "wired" for eternity."  Meaning we were never meant to die and  I know this to be true.

But then comes the blast of truth, "you were also wired to be innocent, without the hard burden of judging between good and evil.  In your humanity and in your mind, you don't have the tools to be God."

Simply stated we were not wired at creation be be able to make accurate judgements between right and wrong, good and evil, because God created all and said it is Good.  Our pure minds became polluted at the fall  and when those decisions are presented, a great confusion ensues.

"Oh wretched man that I am", Paul articulated it well. 

What then is the answer to our day to day dilemmas where evil abounds and our minds are confused by what we see and need to react to?  The Holy One takes me back to Himself,  and my need for Godly wisdom and Divine  Discernment.  We simply cannot survive and thrive on this fallen earth under the cloud of our exile from the Garden of our Creation without a deep and abiding trust relationship with the Holy One sent as our Counselor and friend.


Absent the Holy Spirit's wisdom and discernment I cannot trust myself to judge between right and wrong, good and evil.  But under His authority and the written Word of God, I can move through my circumstances confident that Christ nullified the curse of the fall and provided the antidote for the toxic poison of that forbidden fruit.

James 1:5 exhorts us to ask for wisdom with the promise that God who is faithful will provide it and provide it generously.  What in my life circumstances needs a generous dose of His wisdom and the discernment that comes from His Spirit?  What in your life needs the same?

The Spirit is calling.  Can you hear Him?     

And God Said, "It Is Good"

The Holy One calls me this morning. I am reluctant to open my eyes. What can have changed since yesterday in my world?  As I push past the flesh desire to go back to sleep and just "sit out" this day, the Holy One continues to call me.

Ok, I'm up and evil oppression persists.  The Holy One hears my grumbling thoughts.  It's just another day in "paradise" where darkness covers the land and evil's hand appears everywhere as if this was the way it was intended to be.

Then, the voice of the Holy Spirit speaks.  "Whoa, hold on there, capture those thoughts or your entire day will be off track.  Remember back in the beginning,  when I created...and said it was good?  You are looking through the wrong lens and your vision is tainted."

Not too long ago, I took in a 3D movie  complete with those little glasses I needed to see all the different dimensions in the big screen picture.  The glasses made all the difference in the world.  Without the proper lens, the picture was fuzzy and non-descript, but put on those glasses and in my mind, I was catapulted into the movie itself.

The Holy One says again, "Remember this is a battle, and the battlefield is the human mind.You must take every thought and make it captive to Christ". 

2 Corinth. 10:3,  "For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does.  The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world, on the contrary, they have Divine power to demolish strongholds.  We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God and we take every thought to make it obedient to Christ."

The dark clouds over my thinking begin to dissipate.  The Word brings Light, the Light brings Truth and the Truth brings victory over the darkness.  I re-set my thinking when the Holy One speaks, "I created the world and said It is good. Evil did not create My world.  He can darken your perspective and impact your mind but He cannot change my Goodness or My world.  I said it is "good" and it is.  Look for the good.  Dwell upon whatever is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent or praiseworthy and the oppression like the evil one will depart from your mind.

My day looks better already.  I am going to make it my ambition to focus on what is right, and by the power of the Holy Spirit within, change what is "wrong"in my thinking.  For God created our world and said, "It is good".

The Spirit is calling.   Can you hear Him?

The Language of Holiness

The Spirit calls to me this morning.  From deep within my sleep cocoon, His voice draws me to register that this is a new day. Many hard circumstances have hit my family and friends.  I have been clinging to my Savior and His Word, desperately in need of His peace not only for myself but to share with those I know and love who are suffering.

God's ways are mysterious and confusing. The earth realm is harsh and unyielding in it's apparent control over our temporal circumstances.  Decisions must be made at every corner and every turn: decisions we wish we never have to make. 

With every untoward situation, the very first decision is whether or not to trust God in the trial.

As a Christian, I made the decision to trust my eternity to a crucified Man called Jesus.  I have since learned that the crucified Man is truly the Son of God and that decision was the best one I will ever make this side of Heaven.

Having my eternal future decided and secure didn't stop earth life from delivering painful blows to my heart and mind.  Knowing that we are created to be eternal and that all of us will live on whether in Paradise or Hell doesn't stop the deepest agony when the flesh of our earthly tent is given back to the earth or our hopes and dreams of an idyllic life here are dashed to pieces.

Trusting an Eternal Savior is life long and is put to the test with every blow felt from things beyond my control. 

Today I hear the Holy One say, "You must learn to speak the language of Holiness".  "What do you mean?", are my thoughts as my confusion deepens. He continues, "your words, your communication, even your thoughts articulated within your mind radiate with power.  The evil one knows this and wants you to speak his language thereby opening the doorway for him to deliver his intended doom and cursed hopelessness into your life and over your circumstances.  Guard your words especially when you are weak in trials".

It begins to dawn on me that the "language of Holiness" is hope and faith in God's goodness, His mercy, His love, even and especially when we do not understand His ways.  The Spirit of Truth, as the Holy One is called, requires us to think beyond what circumstances "appear" to be to our natural eye and human perception.  Things are just not as they may appear to us here on earth and in 2 Corinth 5:7, Paul says, "We live by faith not by sight."

Even as we look upon the earthly bodies (tents as the scriptures describe them) of those recently translated into the Heavenly Realm, we see an empty casing, and perceive death as the end of all life, while in reality the person once occupying that "tent" is very much alive in another realm beyond our view.   Things are NOT as they appear to us here.

As circumstances present themselves and we hit what seems to be a brick wall in our life journey, our assessment and declaration of what we see must be processed with the wisdom and under the counsel of the Holy One, lest we miss or misjudge God's good and Sovereign hand at work.

The Holy Spirit has made it clear to me that most of His best work is done outside of human view.  Miracles appear out of nowhere and begin in the darkness not unlike that of the tomb where He raised the crucified body of my Savior and restored His life.

To speak the language of Holiness is to declare God's best over what appears to be evil's worst.  Life is fluid and is always presenting new situations.   Trials are not found to be only in the place between life and physical death.  To those facing an uncertain future or those experiencing thwarted goals,  made with great and Godly purpose at heart, the language of Holiness must be spoken without hesitation

Words of declared trust in God must flow against every circumstance that shrieks that there is no reason to trust. To hesitate, allows the language of the enemy to cross our minds and exit our lips.The enemy's language speaks destruction for he came not but to rob and kill and destroy.

Psalms 96:3, says:   

                                 Sing to the Lord a new song.

                                 Sing to the Lord all the earth

                                 Sing to the Lord.  Praise His Name

                                 Proclaim His salvation day after day

                                 Declare His Glory among the nations

                                 His marvelous deeds among all peoples

                                 Ascribe to the Lord the Glory due His Name.

As evil ratchets up and the day of his ultimate destruction draws near, let us hold fast to the Truth and the hope for our rescue in every trial we face no matter how  hopeless it may appear to our eyes, for God is near.  And just like with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, He is with us in the fire.

My life and being is a temple of the Holy Spirit and one of His dwelling places on this earth.

May the sign over the doorway of my life always read:  "The Language of Holiness is spoken here".

The Spirit is calling.  Can you hear Him?

The Living Word*

The Holy One calls to me this morning.  A while back, at a time when I was being stubborn with the Lord in my faith, the Holy One said, "I know you trust My Will but do you trust My ways"?

Since that time, God's ways have been at the forefront of my thoughts.  I pray and seek to understand the mysterious ways of Holiness.  In the circumstances that touch my life, I am aware that God's ways are much higher than mine. I cannot begin to fathom the mind that sees all things at once; the end from the beginning as it stretches out and beyond the small sequence of a human lifetime upon the earth.

The Bible is a record of 7000 earth years that somehow sits in time and space as a brief and small interlude on eternity's time line.  God's ways, being higher than ours, are beyond our grasp, as His thoughts and His Will deal with a multitude of factors and unimaginable connections in creation, from people to the situations they experience.

The Prophetic words spoken of Christ's first coming traversed years and generations to the point that God's ultimate plan for our salvation and the details of the Savior's life foretold are beyond the odds of it happening outside an eternal plan.

Knowing that God is eternal and His plans for mankind were set long before He created Adam and Eve, means that He foreknew the Garden, He foreknew the snake, and He foreknew the fall.  He also ordained the mission that sent His Son to die on a Cross, crucified for man who thought he should be like the Creator, knowing good and evil.

The concept of the world, like the concept of the Creator is vast and so hard to fathom.  The millions of people in different lands, cultures, time zones, and family groups are foreign and strange to me.  But the Internet has suddenly given me the ability to connect with people far away and in real time.

Through the use of the Internet to communicate with people far, far away the world and the unknown have become more manageable. What was, in times past, a world so vast and unknown to me, is now  brought into my daily life.  Even the language barriers have been leveled by a program called "google translate".  The Internet facilitates communication with those of "another" world other than the one I am confined to by geography and time.

The Bible is the Living Word of God.  It is living because it is powerful and adaptable to every generation and life circumstance of man.  Heb 4:12 says, "For the Word of God is living and active.  Sharper than a double edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and Spirit, joints and marrow." God spoke into the world He created,  Different men were given the assignment to record and protect the priceless communication between the Creator and the created.

God is Spirit at this moment.  He can be felt and heard but not seen.  His activities and the effects of His Presence become visible, but He himself remains ethereal.  That begs the question, "How can we who are fleshly tangible begin to relate to the One who is Ethereal"?  How can we who are flesh and blood relate to the One who is Spirit?

The answer to that is in the pages of the recorded account of God's relationship with man which is His Word, The Bible.  Each and every page is informational and directional.  Our lives today are symbolically spoken of throughout the pages of His Holy Word..  The most important thing to understand and accept is that the Bible is God's method of communication with His Beloved Creation. The Bible is not just a history book or a poetry recital, but the Bible is God's love letter written to and for those who desire relationship with Him.  

The Bible speaks from eternity and bridges the time and space gap that exists between us and our Creator.  Just like the Internet shrinks the vastness of the global world, the Bible shrinks the vastness of eternity. Like communication with someone in a far away land, brings them close to heart and home, the Bible sets up the communication between us and the One who created our being.  And just like the Internet keeps us informed about temporal things, the wisdom of the Living Word offers practical insight from the perspective of the One whose eyes see it all.

Every person who rests under the shade of the Cross of Jesus Christ; everyone who has made the transaction with the Savior Son of God and had their sin removed,  has the ability to comprehend and know God  through the written, Living Word He has provided. 

What was once a foreign language to the heart and mind now comes alive with understanding.  The Holy Spirit interprets.  The supernatural intersects with the natural, the ethereal communes with the tangible, and the Creator of our being comes into focus. 

I delight in the reality  that I can know God's Will because it is written.  His Living Word is His Will.  By the Presence of the Holy Spirit,  I can not only know His Will but I can also begin to trust His mysterious ways.

The Spirit is calling.  Can you hear Him?

Eternity Awaits***

The Holy One calls me this morning. The death of a small child close to home has lives turned upside down and inside out.  Why? is the question on every one's heart, mind and lips.  There is no one to blame and that is a good thing.  Humans tend to want to place responsibility for tragedy on someone or something tangible and controllable so we can have an object upon whom or upon which we can vent our anger or frustration or helplessness.

The dark finger of death intrudes.  It comes without invitation or warning.  It is the among the greatest evils we will ever have to deal with. The age of the child as well as the circumstances of the accident send people over the edge as they search the darkness for answers that just are not to be found.

We are called to bring comfort for those who mourn and today the Holy One speaks, "Share your testimony.  The sorrow and trials you have gone through find Divine purpose in the sharing".

Looking back at how my Beloved has sustained me and taught me through so much turmoil and sorrow over the years, I can see that testimonies of His grace and love and comfort are an encouragement in their places of similar pain. 

While it hurts sometimes to re-visit those days of darkness, testimonies provide a rope others can grasp onto until they reach the other side.

Facing the darkness of death was what began my walk with Jesus a long 47 years ago.  I was "saved" as a young girl by a free will decision to accept Jesus as my personal Savior.  But I did not understand what it was to "walk" with Him on a daily basis nor draw upon the indwelling Holy Spirit for personal guidance.  Looking back I know I was sealed and protected but not living in the fullness and intimacy that I now know is not only possible but desired by my Lord. 

When I was 27 years old, having been raised in the church, my beloved father passed away.  It was the first and hardest death of someone close and I was devastated.  The pain will never be forgotten even as so much time has passed, just because I miss him so.  I was in shock to say the least and thankful that God's mercy provides shock for those things we cannot understand, death being one of them because we were never meant to die.  

God created us for eternal life and we are not wired to handle the termination of it from the earth realm. My father's death was one of many in the dark year that followed.  My sis-in-laws father died 3 months after my dad, my uncle died 3 months after that, her uncle died 3 months after that and then I lost my dog of 13 years a few months after that....and our family dog was beloved by my 2 sons and like unto another child to our family.

When my dad died, I stood over the grave and mourned in the deepest parts of my soul.  I had all the head knowledge about death and Jesus and eternity but at that moment it just wasn't enough.  I watched them lower him into the dark abyss of the grave and cried out to the Lord.  Please, God, you have to become a reality to me.  I confess I do not know where he is and  I cannot go on unless you become my reality over this place I am standing.

Jesus heard and answered the cry of my heart that day. That began what I call my walk or journey with Jesus.  Shortly thereafter, He arranged for me to get into an in depth Bible Study of His word.  With 500 other women, over the next year, I studied and searched the scriptures  in the Book of John to get to know the God who had called my dad away from me and unto Himself.

There is where I fell in love with Jesus, and began to be comforted by my Savior whom I didn't really know before.  The journey has been arduous at times, like the balance of that first year of those losses, and many other trials I have had to endure along the way.  I have learned much through the constant study of God's Word, and the fellowship of His Holy Spirit within, and I am thankful that He took my hand then, when my whole world fell apart.

Since that season of my life I have sustained more losses this side of the veil, each one as emotionally hurtful as that first but as the curtain grows thinner between Heaven and earth, Since that first incredible loss, I have walked more of my beloveds through that valley of the shadow of death. In fact all of my family of origin and even my priceless second born son have passed through the veil and await me on the other side.   

I have trained my heart and eyes to look beyond and rejoice in what lies in that place beyond the veil. There are so many questions we all want to know about the whys and wherefores of this earth life we live.  One thing I do  know is, that the God of all creation wants us to set our hearts on eternity because this world is not our home. 

We must understand that while we are here, there is an enemy of our God who wants to separate us from His love and companionship.  The Garden of Eden, "Paradise" by our standards,  is where God created us to live and love Him. Gen 1 and 2 tells us of God's heart and plan for mankind.  At creation's dawn there was...no death...no sin...no sorrow. "Paradise" is the place where those who have died knowing Him reside today and the place where all of us can return one day.

But, the devil, God's arch enemy wants to destroy us as God's beloved....He will stop at nothing to get us to turn our eyes away for our Savior or blind  our eyes to His outstretched hand.  Satan has made so much available to our flesh, to distract us from the only One who can fill the  empty place in our heart that God provides each person as His place alone.  It is the place and void that only He can fill...not drugs, sex, porn, work, human relationships. No, nothing can fill the aching abyss of our heart except our Creator God.

What the enemy means for harm, God can and will work for the good of His people...and that means our eternal good....even if we cannot comprehend it in the temporal place we live for a short while longer. 

So we wait for the return of our Savior and Lord who promised to come and take us home.  As we wait. we are to mourn with those who mourn and be like Jesus who "wept" at the loss to Mary and Martha even as He prepared to raise Lazarus from dead.  But we do not mourn as those without any hope...and that makes all the difference in what we can offer those suffering. The great news is that Jesus conquered the death we all must face due to the fall.  The physical body of my dad and others I love was returned to the ground out of  which mankind was formed, but his spirit and personality and all that made him the one I love lives on and waits for me in eternity.

Death is but a doorway into our unseen eternity.  That mysterious place beyond the veil, will one day be visible to us all.  Jesus stands ready to welcome all who die and believe/trust in Him.  He is the God of all eternity. I pray for all those who mourn, that what they suffer will lead them unto a greater knowledge of the One who died and rose again. I pray for those whose lives are not torn by the separation from those they love, that they will hunger for the knowledge of the Holy One who holds all of life in His hands.
 
To Jesus be all the Glory for His great victory over death so that we can, with thanksgiving and praise look with great anticipation into that wonderous place beyond the veil. 

The Holy Spirit is calling.  Can you hear Him?

                                                                   

Born in Exile

The Holy One calls me to this morning. The celebration of Purim was yesterday and the historic event of God's rescue of His people as recorded in Esther.  Because there are so many symbollic similarities to our life today, the story of Purim beings me hope.  At the time of Purim, the Jews were living in the land of exile.

The Holy One draws me in.  "You were born in the land of exile".  To someone else's ears that might seem strange, but to me, the Holy One is putting one more piece into the puzzle of my understanding.  I so desire to learn of God's ways with His people.  I can know God's Will because it is written, but His ways with His people are so mysterious.

Isaiah quotes the Lord as declaring that His  thoughts are so much higher than our thoughts and His ways than our ways.  It is interesting how the Holy Spirit will drop a sentence into my mind and provoke me to meditate when He is teaching me Truth.  His statement to me this morning is loaded with meaning to glean.

For the Jewish people, Israel is their homeland and Jerusalem their Holy City.  Sometimes they even leave with the salutation "Next year in Jerusalem".  They have deep ties to the land of Israel, made even stronger over the generations through the Lord's discipline of sending them into exile.  They have a longing to be in Israel where they feel safe and "at home".

We cannot overlook the Lord's masterful plan in the exile.  While it is in part discipline, it has a Divinely orchestrated purpose: For God to reveal  Himself to the pagan nations into which His people were being sent.  While in exile, the Jews historically brought their God and their Faith with them.

During one such period of exile, the Lord sent a word  through His prophet.   Jeremiah 29:4, reads, "This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem. Build houses, settle down, plant gardens and eat what they produce.  Marry and have sons and daughters.  Find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage so they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there, do not decrease."

God intended that His people prosper in the land of exile and be a witness of Him to the world around them. Their witness and testimony about Him was intended to spread the good news among the pagans of the world. They were not set up to die in that place but rather prosper.

So what should this speak to me given, the Holy One's statement this morning?

I'm thinking that a child born in exile doesn't grasp that there is a homeland far superior to the place into which they were born.  However the training by the parent can paint a wonderful picture of the place called home of what the heart longs for and why.  Are we so caught up in the daily struggles and even pleasures of this place of exile that we don't teach our children to long for our homeland?

When I became a follower of Christ, I came to realized that Heaven is my Homeland and the place that I long for.  While I am in exile, I am to live out my life day to day sharing my faith and my God.  But I am not to forget my homeland.  I must not get too comfortable in the land of exile  lest I forget that this world is not my home.

Jesus has said, that  He will return for His people.  We are in this land of exile for just a little while longer. We are to increase and manifest our faith as we live in a place not our own.  But as we "occupy until He comes", may we never forget about our homeland. Most of the sadness we cannot understand that grips our heart is the deep longing for our true Home.

As I write this blog, tragedy has struck the earth realm in the death of a precious child.  But the mental picture painted of her last seconds of life here on earth was one of her running through a field of flowers into the arms of the One who was calling her home.  Precious Anna arrived in her homeland that, for the moment, we can only long to see.

The Spirit is calling.  Can you hear Him?

Our Divine Interpreter

The Holy One calls me this morning, "get up, we have lots to go over today!"

My body feels so heavy trying to find the lamp to light the way out of my bed.  I love the energy of the Holy One and wish I could tap into it first thing.  But then I realize that He neither sleeps nor slumbers so my human body is at a disadvantage.

It takes me a little while to rev up but the Holy One is patient with me. I have a long list of questions for Holiness as I get to know and understand the Trinity, to the extent that my finite mind can capture the infinite...NOT!


But seriously, the sacred romance with the Creator of the universe does bring an insatiable hunger to know Him and the questions about Him just build and build the more I walk with my Beloved.

It has taken me a long time in earth years to even begin to comprehend the mysterious Presence of Holy Spirit in my being.  Now that I am aware of Him, I ponder how am I "neutralizing" His vital ruling Presence over my life.

Jesus said, in John 14 & 16 that He and the Father would send the "Counselor", the "Spirit of Truth" to "live" with us and "be in" us.  The world around us cannot see Him nor know Him and therefore cannot accept Him.

The Holy One explains part of the mystery.  "I am your Interpreter.  The language of Holiness is foreign to the human.  I interpret for you and make God's language understandable."

From the Old testament account of Moses' encounter with Holiness to the book of the end called Revelation and John's vision of Christ's Glory, we have been advised that the human has no capacity to survive an encounter with Holiness.  The Power and Glory of the Divine would utterly destroy a human in our current form, which is why God, the Son took on a flesh body to engage in relationship with the created.

In the same way that the intensity of the Tribune Godhead cannot be charted on a human Richter scale, neither can the deep mysteries of His being be interpreted by the human mind.  We need a translator and we have been given the Holy Spirit, the Third Person of the Godhead, to lead us into all Truth.   The Truth IS the Great I AM.

God doesn't just speak Truth.  God is Truth. Holiness is Truth.

Today He begins to answer one of my deep questions, "How do I "neutralize" His ruling Presence?"  It starts when I believe a lie, and allow it to stand.   The world around us, who neither sees nor knows Truth and therefore cannot accept Him constantly promotes lies and deception in the language so familiar to our flesh.

The Word of Holiness, the Bible, is the encyclopedia of all Truth.  To think about my thoughts in light of God's Word and commit them to my on board Interpreter empowers the rule of Holiness in and through my  life.

It is within the pages of the Living Word of Truth that the Great Interpreter will shed His light. He will give me understanding and clear up the lies, thus enabling me to trust and obey His ruling Presence.

To know God's Word is to Know God.  The Holy Spirit is our Interpreter and will lead us into all Truth.  Knowledge is the first step in obedience and trust precedes surrender.

The Spirit is calling. Can you hear Him?